Satmetrix, the creator of the Net Promoter customer loyalty score, yesterday unveiled its social media measurement tool, SparkScore, at the Satmetrix Net Promoter conference in San Francisco. Like Net Promoter, the solution will rate brands on a negative 100 to 100 scale and categorize customers as "detractors," "passives," or "promoters."

Net Promoter is based on a simple question: "On a scale of zero to ten (with zero being extremely unlikely and ten being extremely likely), how likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague?" This segments customers into three categories: promoters (9-10), passives (7-8), and detractors (0-6). The Net Promoter score is calculated by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, providing a possible score range of -100 to 100.

Instead of survey responses, however, SparkScore's findings are based on comments in social media, customer reviews, and discussion forums that are interpreted via an algorithm that Satmetrix has developed with the sentiment analysis firm Metavana.

"In the absence of an effective way of making business sense of social media content, businesses have been limited to simply counting tweets, likes, follows, or other vendor-specific score methodologies that don't have the proven linkage to growth," said Richard Owen, CEO of Satmetrix, in a statement. "SparkScore, our breakthrough social media Net Promoter Score, will change the game. Companies will be able to understand the sentiment of what is being said about their brands online, connect it to measurable business results, and bring it to the boardroom."

The fluid nature of social media will allow companies to capture more "volatile themes" from a customer's "end-to-end experience" of service, said Laura Brooks, vice president of innovation and strategy at Satmetrix.

"SparkScore's engine measures referrals and comments that are free from traditional surveys and improves the human level of accuracy," Brooks added.

A free edition of SparkScore will be released near the end of February, followed by a version that will be embedded into the company's Net Promoter in the Cloud application.